Lope-Okanda National Park - Gabon

Area:  4,913 km²

Inscribed: 2007

Criteria (mixed site): (ix) ecological processes; (x) biodiversity (and cultural criteria (iii), (iv))

Values: This park protects one of the most diverse tracts of rainforest in the Congo Basin, interspersed with very ancient man-made savannas, creating a mosaic of grasslands and forests.  The fauna includes 84 species of mammals and 405 birds, including many little-known forest species.  There are more globally threatened species than at any other Congo rainforest site, including western lowland gorilla, mandrill, chimpanzee, and the endemic suntailed guenon (which was only discovered in 1994).  The forest-savanna interface typical of central Gabon is well preserved in the park, and ecological and archaeological evidence shows that the area was inhabited almost continuously from late Palaeolithic times 350-400,000 years ago to the present. Scattered across the landscape is an exceptional archaeological record of successive cultures including the remains of Palaeolithic tools, Neolithic villages of 4,000 years BP and Iron Age metal-working sites from 2,500 years ago.

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Links:  Google Earth | UNEP-WCMC Site Description |Official UNESCO Site Details | Birdlife IBA